Observation Of A Meeting
by Phoebonica
Summary: A dark night, a long black car, and the delivery of a manuscript. Lemony's not as reliable as he appears at first glance. This is how the end begins...


Disclaimer: Daniel Handler owns A Series Of Unfortunate Events and, presumably, himself. I regard both characters here as equally fictional, since"Mr Snicket's representative" isbasically a canonical self-insertion.

**Observation Of A Meeting**

This is how the end begins.

The moon is full tonight, and its light turns everything into monochrome. There's a man standing by the edge of a cliff. This is all we can make out at the moment, because he stands with his face in shadow, hidden under a pulled down fedora hat. We can't see his eyes, but he's looking down at the ocean, at the waves crashing on to the rocks. He's holding a briefcase in his right hand.

He's standing perfectly still. There's a faint breeze every now and then, rippling the bottom of his long coat, but he doesn't react to it.

There is a road behind him that follows the edge of the cliff, and now a car is coming along it. Tiny pinpricks of light and a faint roaring sound that get brighter and louder as they approach. The man at the edge of the cliff tenses slightly, not actually moving, but becoming more alert somehow. It seems he has been expecting someone to come along this road. This car, however, is not the one, and it sweeps past and disappears into the darkness. The light only strikes his face for a second, too quickly for us to make out any detail, but we can see in the brief illumination that his coat is a faded beige colour, and what is visible of his hair is dark brown.

He goes back to watching the waves. That's all we can hear now, the lapping of the waves against the shore. _Shh, shh._

Another car is coming.

This time it stops.

It draws to a halt at the side of the road, and another man climbs out of the driver's seat, stepping on to the grass verge where the first man is standing. He's dressed similarly to the first man, but he's not quite as tall or thin and he's not wearing a hat. You can see his hair, cropped short and slightly receding. You can see his eyes. Anyone could. He shuts the car door, and the man at the edge of the cliff turns round.

We catch a glimpse of his face for a moment. It's not much, but it's enough to tell that the two of them look somewhat alike. Their profiles are similar, they share the arrangement of their features enough that if you didn't know them well you could mistake one for the other. The main difference is in the way the first one moves. There's a sense of tension about him, a feeling that he's always poised to run, even now when we can tell that he knows the other man and doesn't fear him. Even though it's mostly relief that's in his voice when he says, "You're here."

"You thought I wouldn't come?" the other man says. He holds out a hand, possibly to shake hands, possibly to pull the first man into a one armed embrace the way that old friends will who have missed each other. The first man doesn't respond to this either way. He clicks open his briefcase and looks inside.

"I thought you might be – delayed," he says. He takes out a sheaf of papers, and flicks through them to make sure that they're all there before pressing them into the second man's outstretched hand.

The second man steps back, lowering his arm. "This is it?" he says, sounding surprised and rather hurt.

"That's it," the man in the hat confirms.

There is a pause then as the two of them look at each other, both seeming to expect the other one to say something more.

Then they both speak together. "Does this…"

"Are you going to…"

They break off, uncomfortable. The second man runs a hand through his hair. "No, you go ahead."

The first man looks down. His hands play with the locks of the briefcase. "Are you going to read it?"

"You mean – now? Here?"

"You don't have to," the man in the hat says, too quickly. He grips the briefcase tighter. "But if you – if it's not too much – would you? Please?"

"Okay," the second man says. He says it gently, in the tone you would use to comfort a distressed friend, someone who has turned up sobbing and hysterical on your doorstep in the middle of the night. _Okay, calm down. Okay, things are going to be fine._ The man in the fedora hat is not sobbing or hysterical, but his hands are trembling slightly and what can be seen of his face in the moonlight looks drawn and pale.

The second man walks back to his car and opens the door. He sits down sideways on the seat, to read by the light that comes on in the roof. The man in the hat remains where he is, setting the briefcase down by his feet and watching him. Waiting.

It takes the man in the car a couple of hours to read the whole thing. He turns the pages quickly at first, skim reading, seeming to know the general gist of them already if not the exact details. About halfway in the expression on his face becomes one of slight shock and then, gradually, a dawning realisation. He turns the last page and sits silently for about five minutes, looking down at the final few words.

"Oh," he says, almost to himself. He looks up at the first man, who is watching him the way you would watch a pile of books that has collapsed already and been hurriedly stacked up again. "That's why you wanted me to see it first."

The man in the fedora hat swallows hard and nods. He looks as if he is about to say something, but he does not. He takes a half step backwards.

The man in the car stands up abruptly. "People think you're a hero," he says. He sounds surprised, confused, but not angry, his voice is not raised. The man in the hat recoils though, as if he had shouted. "Everyone on our side…" He breaks off, shaking his head as if he has just caught himself in an elementary spelling mistake. "Everyone who… isn't on Olaf's side, thinks that you're trying to save it all. They think you're VFD's last chance."

"Perhaps they should read more carefully." The man in the hat is not very good at sounding harsh or dispassionate. He tries, but a slight tremble creeps in at the edge of his voice. "I've never claimed to be anything of the kind."

"When this comes out…" The second man waves the hand with the manuscript in it. Pages flutter in the breeze. "You're going to double the number of people who want you dead."

The first man grimaces briefly, as if in pain. "I doubt that that will make any practical difference."

"Maybe not to you." The second man shakes his head. "But you're _destroying_ it all," he adds, seeming to be repeating this more to confirm it to himself than for his companion's benefit. "I – I'm not saying I don't understand it. Because… when I think back on things you've said, it seems – so obvious now, that this is where you were heading. But I thought you were… I was expecting you to… you're going to expose it all, aren't you? The whole thing."

The first man nods. Looking down at the floor, he says four words that are too quiet and are blown away by the wind before anyone can hear them.

"Sorry?" the second man says.

The first man looks up. He stares his companion straight in the eyes, seeming resolute if still fearful – _this is how things are and I will not falter, even if I want to_. "You could stop me," he says, very distinctly.

The second man blinks, taken aback. "Stop you?" he echoes.

"If you had to. It's in your hands. You could change it if you wanted to. Rewrite it. You know how to imitate my writing, after all. Or just get rid of it. Say I never turned up. Maybe I had an accident." The man in the fedora hat has been speaking rapidly, jerkily, and now he pauses and takes a deep breath. Perhaps he glances towards the cliff edge, perhaps not. "Maybe I was bitten by a bug and paralysed."

"You think I'd do that?" The second man sounds more alarmed than offended by this, concerned by the dark thoughts this friend of his has regarding this meeting and the two of them. He takes a step forward, then halts, uncertain. None of this can have been what he expected.

"If you thought it was right," the first man says quietly. He looks down at the ground, gives a slight shrug. "You're a volunteer."

"I'm your _best friend_!" He almost does shout that. He closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. "And I'm not much of a volunteer these days. I managed to have a life outside of it," he adds. He looks down at the manuscript again. "Some people didn't," he mutters.

"I can't…" The first man shudders, taking a deep breath. His fingers are spread out, palms pushing down against air. "I can't _help_ that," he whispers. "I can't _change_ that."

"Some people…" The second man decides not to continue this sentence. Instead he says, "Do you think I _ought_ to stop you?"

"If you think I need to be stopped." The first man shuts his eyes. His hands are trembling noticeably now, despite his efforts to control them. "If you think I'm wrong."

There is another long silence, broken only by the sound of the waves and of rapid, anxious breathing.

"I don't think you're wrong," the second man says. He reaches out and touches his companion lightly on the arm, apparently expecting him to turn and make eye contact again. This does not happen, but he leaves the hand there for a moment longer anyway. "I don't think that at all."

"Oh," the first man says in a small voice. He moves his arm away, seeming almost to shrink down into his coat. "Oh. Okay."

"You don't have to -"

"I think you should probably go now," the man in the hat says. His voice is quick, urgent. Quiet. As polite as it possibly can be, under the circumstances. He doesn't open his eyes.

The second man opens his mouth, then closes it without speaking. He puts a hand over his face. "I'll see you later," he says, sounding pained.

The man in the fedora hat says nothing to confirm or deny this. He looks down at the grass.

The second man walks slowly back to the car. He looks back over his shoulder a couple of times, but the first man doesn't move. It is clear that the second man does not want to leave, that he has any number of things still to say to this person who may or may not be a friend of his, and it is equally clear to both of them that there is nothing more to say. He gets into the car, placing the manuscript down carefully on the passenger seat beside him. He closes the door and sits there in silence for a moment, and then he drives away.

This is how the end begins.

The man on the edge of the cliff wraps his arms around himself. It is not that cold, yet he shivers and huddles down inside his coat that seems suddenly too large for him, as if he were a child in hand-me-down clothes. Or perhaps dressing up, disguised as an adult. The man in the long coat stands silently in the moonlight. He has no one to wait for any longer. He watches the waves.


End file.
